[3.25] The Lazy Nova - Archmage MoM Crit Ice Nova of Frostbolts with Svalinn

90% of the build is automated.
When you cast Ice Nova you automatically trigger the spells socketed inside Kitava's Thirst, when you block you trigger the ones inside Svalinn.

The Arcane Cloak setup with Arcane Surge is automatically casted on cooldown by the Automation support gem.

You just need to cast Frostblink to move around and put an Arcanist Brand on bosses.

Svalinn makes your block chance Lucky.
What Lucky means is that every "roll" is doubled and only the best result is kept.

For example, if you normally have 50% chance to block, the double roll of Lucky bumps it to 75%.

I will try to explain the math behind it.

Let's assume that our block chance is 50%
Normally when something try to hit us block chance is rolled and we can expect just 2 outcomes:

"

A-50%
Roll: Success

B-50%
Roll: Fail

We only 1 favorable result out of 2 (which is correct, since we have 50% block chance)


With Svalinn every attempt is rolled twice, so the possible outcomes become 4:

"

A-25%
Roll1: Success
Roll2: Success

B-25%
Roll1: Success
Roll2: Fail

C-25%
Roll1: Fail
Roll2: Success

D-25%
Roll1: Fail
Roll2: Fail

Just the best result from the 2 rolls is kept, so now we have 3 favourable outcome out of 4 (75% block chance)

We use different skills/support that adds flat Lightning damage based on our mana.

The Archmage support adds flat lightning damage to the supported skill based on the caster's unreserved maximum mana (19% at lvl20).
The buff Arcane Cloak at lvl20 costs 64% of our current unspent mana and then gives us 14% of this spent mana as flat Lightning damage.

If we have 5000 mana, a lvl 20 Archmage adds 950 (5000*0,19) flat Lightning dmg to the supported skill and Arcane Cloak adds 448 Lightning dmg.
Those are summed (1398) and then scaled by the Damage Effectivness of the skill we are using (130% in the case of Ice Nova) to a grand total of 1817 of Lightning dmg.

To put things in perspective, a lvl 20 Ice Nova does 590 to 885 cold damage.
This means that we can ignore the base cold damage of Ice Nova and scale just lightning dmg (for example, 90% of the damage that my character does is Lightning).

This is why we use things like Conductivity, Wrath, Lightning Leech and Lightning penetration.

Basically we are just using the Ice Nova+Frostbolt as a vector to dish out absurd amount of Lightning damage.

The downside of the Archmage support is that the spell supported became super expensive to cast, but with Kitava's Thirst we turn this in an upside.

Since our ascendacy Conviction of Power gives us an headstart of +1 max power charge, it seems natural to get a little more of those to crit with our spells.
also, Anathema fits perfectly in this plan, making us able to use a lot of offensive curse debuffs.

We also runs a plethora of other minor buffs.

We can also abuse of one of the strongest jewel interaction on the passive tree (Unnatural Instinct+The Light of Meaning)

Given that we are stacking mana for dps, going Mind Over Matter is free.
The non-Svalinn versions of the build we take MoM on the tree, but we cannot path like that (more on that later), so we have to use Cloak of Defiance to get it.

Svalinn makes going block super cheap.
I spent something like 6divs to switch from non block to block and the difference is astronomical.
I'm talking about getting exploded in wave 9 in simulacrum and by white mobs in T17 versus clearing both with basically no effort.

Some of our curses are defensive (Enfeeble) or both offensive and defensive (Punishment)

Most of our buffs offer also defensive layers.

If any of this is confusing is probably because I'm taking for granted something.
You can refer to the Ziz build guide for the basics, but feel free to write in the comments if you want me to elaborate on something.

Here's a PoB that illustrate how to level

https://pobb.in/uc2FKYc75IuH

Final Passive Tree

If you prefer a PoB link, you can find it below in the dedicated Path of Building section

Kill all Bandits for the passive point.

Major God: Soul of the Brine King - stun/freeze avoidance
Minor God: Soul of Abberath - taking no damage from burning ground is super nice

A note on attribute requirements
The biggest DEX requirement of the build comes from Cloak of Defiance.
You need to have at least 76 DEX to equip it.
However this is reduced to 57 by the mod Items and Gems have 25% reduced Attribute Requirements present on Atziri's Foible.

Templars starts with 14 DEX and our pathing on the tree brings us to 24 (we take just 1 little dex node).
This means that we need to have at least 33 DEX somewhere to be able to wear Cloak of Defiance.

STR and INT aren't a problem, we have more than we need just by pathing on the tree.

Chest (6L)
Ice Nova of Frostbolts + Archmage + Inspiration + Spell Echo + Intensify + Increased Critical Damage

Kitava setup (2L+1S+1S)
Frostbolt + GMP
Assassin's Mark
Enfeeble

Svalinn setup (1S+1S+1S)
Sigil of Power
Frost Shield
Wave of Conviction

Arcanist Brand setup (3L)
Arcanist Brand + Conductivity + Punishment

Arcane Cloak setup (4L)
Automation + Arcane Cloak + More Duration + Arcane Surge

Other stuff (2L+2L)
Wrath + Eternal Blessing
Frostblink of Wintry Blast + Spell Echo

There are a lot gems that are not worth getting to 20q, here's a list.

Frostblink of Wintry Blast, Wave of Conviction, Arcane Surge, Frostbolt and GMP give damage, but not to our main skill, so we don't care about it.

Enfeeble augment its duration, but we constantly apply it, so it's pretty useless.

Arcanist Brand makes its activation more frequent, but we want to just to curse once with it.

Frost Shield augmet its chilling effects. Not totally useless, but not too exciting.

Wrath increases its AoE. Useful if you play in groups, useless if you mostly play solo.


All the other gems have qualities that helps our dps/ehp, so try to get them.
In particular Assassin's Mark at 20% quality has Cursed Enemies have a 5% chance to grant a Power Charge when Hit that is how we generate Power Charges, so get it asap.

This build is an "evolution" of the Goratha/Ziz build and, in fact, levels and plays in the exact same way for a long time.
It's just in the late endgame (lvl90+) that we switch to crit and block.
I've written a brief leveling guide below, but you can watch the Ziz's Video Guide if you prefer.

In the section Passive Tree there's a PoB with the tree progression to follow.

How to Level
you can proceed through the game with the super classic Rolling Magma + Combustion + Elemental Proliferation link in tandem with an Holy Flame Totem (you can buff it with things like the Added Lighnting Damage support gem).

Use Flame Dash as a movement skill. At this stage of the game you can use Herald of thunder and Herald of Fire to pump your damage.

After level 31 you can start to use Archmage (Siosa will sell it after the Fixture of Faith quest in the Library of Act 3).

Your main link should be something like:
Firestorm + Archmage + Inspiration + Unleash

If you don't like Firestorm, Ball Lightning is another great choice.

Link Wrath or Grace to Eternal Blessing to have a free (no reservation) aura.

At this time you can also start to use Arcane Cloak linked with Arcane Surge and More Duration.
You can try to add Automation if you have a 4-link, but probably at this stage it will be problematic to sustain it constantly.

Speaking of mana regen, keep in mind that you'll need a mana flask for a very long time (there's no rule saying when you can drop it, but having at least a mana regen in the 900/1000 range is a good starting point). You can also link Clarity to Arrogance if you feel the need of it.

After level 38 you can pick up Arcanist Brand in Act 4 and link it with Sigil of Power and curse of your choice (i was using Punishment) to automate some of your buffs.

From there feel free to switch to Ice Nova of Frostbolts as soon as you have the currency to buy the gem itself and a Kitava's Thirst (you can play without it, but automated Frostbolts are sooooo much nicer).

The links I used from that point onward were something like this:


Then is just a matter of leveling a little bit more and get some currency, then you can transition into this version.

In the meanwhile you can start to incorporate in the build some of the Unique gear that is good no matter what. Those are Anathema, Atziri's Foible, Unnatural Instinct and The Light of Meaning.

When you are ready to switch, if you can, it's probably better to pass directly from non-crit/non-block to crit/block, but that requires a lot of currency, so in the PoB mentioned at the start of this guide I've added a "stepping stone" tree if you want to begin transitioning into crit alone.

I've chosen crit as a stepping stone because you basically just need a good crit wand, Assassin's Mark and a Diamon Flask to do it.
This is because a lot of things that we are already using (Power Charges, Frost Shield, Inspiration), happens to also buffs our crit chance. We were simply ignoring the crit aspect of them before.

The transition into block requires at least Cloak of Defiance, Svalin and The Red Nightmare, so it will cost at least 6divs.

https://pobb.in/JTRPzE_sJcQT

You can watch the simulacrum video if you want to see the build in action with this exact setup

If you really like the build and you have a bunch of currency this version attempts to bring it a step further.

We start by cutting some node on the tree to be able to allocate a Large Cluster Jewel with Doryani's Lesson, a notbale that grants us life leech.
In this way we can change the Eater of Worlds implicit in our gloves from #% of Lightning Damage Leeched as Life to Inflict Lightning Exposure on Hit, applying -#% to Lightning Resistance.

Given the fact that now we apply exposure with our gloves, we no longer need Wave of Conviction in the Svalinn.
In its place we can put the Conductivity gem that used to be in our Arcanist Brand.

We can now start to use a proper lvl20 Elemental Weakness in the Arcanist Brand.

This makes the #% chance to Curse Enemies with Elemental Weakness on Hit mod on our wand obsolete, so we can now remove it to use the much more stronger Haunted by Tormented Spirits.

We got so much cast speed that now the caster mastery 6% increased Cast Speed for each different Non-Instant Spell you've Cast Recently can be dropped and replaced with Spells which can gain Intensity have +1 to maximum Intensity.

In the process we gained 2 jewel socket (from the Large Cluster Jewel), so we can use jewels that give us +#% Chance to Block Spell Damage while holding a Shield to reach the cap of 88% spell block chance.

On those we can also have the corrupted implicit Corrupted Blood cannot be inflicted on you and a bunch of other mods that give us damage (increased mana, cast speed, crit multi).

It's a big step forward both in term of dps gain and ehp gain.

Here's the PoB:

https://pobb.in/r0MEPgKMk4As

you got a mageblood and now what?
there are maaaaaaaaaany things that you could do with a mageblood, but if you can't decide (or if you are broke now that you bought the belt) you can just change your flasks to get some immunities while you contiune your grind.



flasks like these will make you immune to stun, curses and ailments (in combo with stormshroud), so they will be a significant boost in ehp.

you should also change your major pantheon in solaris/lunaris now that brine king is obsolete.

here's the pob for reference https://pobb.in/_9rtuJYMyKd-

Simulacrum
Enderslayer + Invitation
T17 Fortress
5 Way
T16 with delirium, beyond, breaches, eow, extra phys, extra crit, perma chilled and shocked
Sirus
My first ever attempt at Uber Sirus
Simulacrum Deathless
Uber Cortex

"

SendoTakeshi wrote:

What do you guys think about an awakend spell echo support? Its expensive as f** and i am not sure if all the divs are worth the gain

from the wiki:

"

The additional expansions from Frostbolts do not count as "repeats," and as such will not receive the escalating damage of Greater Spell Echo Support or be modified by "final repeat" modifiers such as Awakened Spell Echo Support

basically only 1 of our 8 novas will have a 20% chance to deal double damage.

let's say that a single nova does 100 dmg and we cast ice nova 10 times.
every single nova will do 1000 dmg. we create 8 novas every cast so
8 * 1000 = 8000

let's swap awakened spell echo in.
1 of our novas has now 20% chance do deal double damage, basically meaning that, if we cast ice nova 10 times again, this nova will do the usual 100 dmg 8 times, but 2 times it will do 200 dmg.
so this nova has done 1200 dmg after 10 casts, but the other 7 the usual 1000 so
7 * 1000 = 7000 + 1200 = 8200

this is a 2.5% damage increase.

other than that, the awakened version gives 5% more cast speed compared to a lvl20 regular spell echo.

factoring the added cast speed it's probably a grand total of ~5% of dmg increase.

unless this is one of the last pieces that you are missing I don't think that this is worth the 53+div that people are asking for awakened spell echo.

TL;DR
no

"

Fallozaur wrote:

I am fairly new to the game and I never interacted with jewels. This militant faith is so confusing to me, doesnt it replace my nodes completely? do i still retain "original" node bonus? do i need to allocate the point to actually get the bonus from the changes node? I found some jewels that replace my +1 maximum power charge node into physical damage reduction, do i lose that max power charge? is it worth it?

i got this timeless jewel calculator website thats how i check different seeds, but i dont wanna overspend on that jewel. like the guy before me who said he gets immunity to ailments but he doesnt have the node that got replaced allocated

help,
confused exile

all of the timeless jewel will change the keystones (BIG passive point on tree) to something else (Inner Conviction in the case of Militant Faith)

certain timeless jewel (glorious vanity) will also ALWAYS change your small and medium passive points.
other timeless jewel (like the militant faith that we are using) have a chance to do it.

the catch is that we really like our tree, so we want to avoid militant faiths that change the points that we have allocated, like this one:

all the medium nodes (highlighted in red) are still what they were before, so we still have their bonuses plus the ability to allocate Inner Conviction (higlighted in green).

this one still gives us the access to Inner Conviction, but it also overrides the lightning notable, and we don't like that



the militant faith that you have overrides the power charge node, so you will not receive an additional power charge, so it's not good.


you should seek a militant faith that doesn't override any of the nodes that we use, like the one in the first pic

regarding cluster jewel
"so we want a large cluster jewel with 8 passive nodes and 3 notables, but we are just taking 2 of those. why?"


the 8 passive nodes part should be fairly obvious (less passive points spent to get what we are interested in), the notable number part is very easy to understand as soon as you know how cluster jewel works.

large cluster jewels can roll with 1, 2 or 3 notable nodes added, but they aren't added randomly: there's a pattern.



now that we know that this is the pattern we can observe that the 3 notable pattern is the most efficient point-wise.

the 1 notable variant gives us 2 jewel sockets and 1 notable for 7 points
the 2 notable variant gives us 2 jewel sockets and 2 notables for 7 points
the 3 notable variant gives us 2 jewel sockets and 2 notables for 5 points (we can just ignore the third notable)

now is clear why we want a 3notable cluster, but how can we know that the 2 notables that we want are in the right spots?



well, the notables aren't placed randomly, every combo of 3 notables has its pattern

for example, a cluster with

• Doryani's Lesson
• Scintillating Idea
• Snowstorm

will have ALWAYS the Doryani's Lesson and Scintillating Idea on the right spots and Snowstorm in the "bad" spot

a cluster with

• Doryani's Lesson
• Scintillating Idea
• Sadist

has ALWAYS the Doryani's Lesson in the "bad" spot


So now it's just a matter of identifying the 2 notables that we want and then found a third "waste" notable that makes them appear in the right spots.

You can do it in pob by testing the combo that you like.

I did it for Doryani's Lesson and Scintillating Idea (%mana, light pen), here's the trade link.

This should return every jewel with

• Doryani's Lesson
• Scintillating Idea
• Waste mod to make them in the right spots

(this should be 100% correct, but please check in pob to be sure before spending a lot of divs 😅)

Update #3 (16 Aug, 2024):
Added more info on jewels, pantheon and bandits

Update #2 (13 Aug, 2024):
Added more info, gemlinks and explanations of some jewel mechanics

Update #1 (13 Aug, 2024):
Post created, need to add some info